DELICIOUS
DIRT
Northwest
author says feed the soil, not just the plants.
By
Rachel Foster
THE
ANN LOVEJOY HANDBOOK OF NORTHWEST GARDENING, photographs
by Janet Loughrey, Sasquatch Books, 2003, paperback $27.95.
Bainbridge Island gardener Ann Lovejoy is author of about 20 books.
She is also the founder and director of the Sequoia Center for the
Healing Arts, which offers classes in meditation, music and movement.
Now she is co-owner of the nursery Bainbridge Gardens, too, where
she developed a garden Health Department featuring natural solutions
for garden problems.
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| Ann
Lovejoy |
Lovejoy leads education and travel programs for gardeners. In Costa
Rica, she started a gardeners' program for Eco Teach, a nonprofit
that supports environmental protection projects. Add in pro bono public
gardening projects and her weekly columns on food and gardening for
a Seattle paper, and Lovejoy's energy and accomplishments appear almost
super-human. This is clearly a person with a mission.
That mission is to promote natural and sustainable garden design
and care. Great gardens without guilt, you might say, and without
unnecessary labor. Luckily for Northwest gardeners, she has carved
out the time to write a comprehensive handbook to help us put her
passion to work for us. Whether your concern is ivy removal, smart
plant selection or natural rose care, this book will help.
An opening chapter on garden design contains many tips on keeping
maintenance to a minimum while building a garden you can really enjoy.
One suggestion I heartily endorse is that every Northwest garden needs
a rain shelter with seats and a nice view. (I haven't quite figured
out how to implement this idea at home, but I am working on it!) And
here's another: Leave a gravel-filled strip, 18 inches wide, between
the house wall and your bushes to ease house-care, keep out carpenter
ants and improve plant performance.
In an introduction to the principles of natural gardening, the author
explains what's wrong with chemicals (not only for the world but for
your garden) and brings up the virtues of the old organic mantra,
feed the soil, not just the plants. Chapter Three, the longest in
the book by many pages, explains in thoughtful detail just how you
can do this, by building the kind of soil that confers drought and
disease resistance and allows plants to take care of themselves. Natural
weed and pest control have chapters of their own, and one on Northwestern
lawns is alone worth the price of the book
Native plants have a prominent place in Lovejoy's writing, but she
is not a purist. Lovejoy does want mainstream gardeners to rethink
their ornamental gardens, but her key phrase, when it comes to plant
selection, is "natives and allies." Locally native plants and non-invasive
species from around North America and the globe are equally acceptable
in Lovejoy's garden world, as long as they are well-adapted to the
local environment and our own particular garden habitats.
Gardens like the ones we see in Janet Loughrey's excellent photographs
will always be hard work, and are not for everyone. But this book
could help anyone make the garden they dream about while avoiding
chemicals and dispiriting, repetitive work.
Rachel
Foster of Eugene is a garden writer and consultant. She can be reached
at rfoster@efn.org
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